qwazse

It really starts with the CC. He needs to be on the hunt for adults to add to the depth chart. You need to help him. Together, you need to find families/friends with property to camp in. If not. Forget overnights every month. Work on day activities theta get the boys out in the community visiting local officials or doing service projects. Q: where do your scouts who age out go?

“It’s 2018, and a person who identifies as a metronome still can’t join the Boy Scouts. Let that sink in,” That would explain the profoundly arythmic campfire songs.

Well there's your reservoir! All those bagged and tagged biting specimens that everyone tossed aside but forgot to kill!

Mission statements in general are pretty novel contrivances of corporate culture. I remember taking on roles in church leadership and a Wharton grad said we needed one, (because, really, the Good Book wasn't quite cutting it). My brother was working on management theory about the same time, and he pitched the same thing to his church, who had even more ancient roots. I suspect this happened in a number of non-profits, and figure BSA was one of the leads in this, given how it actively sought leaders from it's most active corporate donors.

Cross-posting ... Agree that first-draft names rarely stick. Things will eventually get called what folks want to call them.

Technically, in pioneering, the splices and mats (like the turkshead flattened out) fall under macramé. So we're already there. Hashtag parachord bracelet.

This boils down to one of those "until you've walked a mile in their shoes" situations. In general, I trust boots-on-the-ground scouters to know what it means to do a service to their children. I am concerned, however, that those cubs will be perplexed when they cross over into a troop that makes the lady cobra patrol camp 300' away from the gentleman rat patrol!

One perspective is that BSA started down the road to faithlessness when it started purging adults, girls, and godless from advancement. This attempts to restore that trust of delivering the promise of scouting ... rewarding achievement rather than identity.

Around here the general public refers to them (Packs, Troops, Crews, Posts) as scouts, meanwhile GS/USA were girl scouts. I'm not sure how that came about, either from casual use of language or foreign influence. My Italian exchange student, for one, was quick to correct, "I am a Scout. Not a Girl Scout." Interestingly she also found the distinction between "scout" and "scouter" to be odd. It bothered her when I would refer to when I was a scout. She'd interject, "What do you mean? Once a scout, always a scout!"

You typically only get that acre lot from a generous farmer or landowner. Some community parks/fairgrounds will give that, especially if the boys plan on doing some service. Game lands often have fields that large. Many wilderness recreation areas insist on that kind of spacing - in groups smaller than the average patrol, but that also predicates that your boys are have become disciplined in things like bear bagging, water purification, Leave no Trace, etc ... In the hills of WPa/WV; however, 50 feet can feel like a mile ... easily out of sight and sound. Where allowed, I'll bring my dog, who doubles duty as SPL patrolling each site. Problem is, he hates cyclists (we've learned the hard way), and we have to find places that don't appeal to mountain bikers! So, having him along is a rare treat.

Not bad. One part boy, one part America, two parts scouts. Hopefully girls will realize that means it's for them!

Early 80s bumper sticker,

Ours doesn't but I wish they did. My wide-brim leather hat wore out, and the company that made it, no longer makes that width.😪

Welcome. Thanks for your service to youth! Look forward to hearing your ideas.

Mixed feelings about the exemption. {Insert identity-vs.-achievement rant here.} {Insert, but- yeah, to do it right a reconciliation commission would need go clear back to 1970 or whenever the first tag-along did everything the award required.} The clever move would to remove the age 18 deadline altogether, then tell those young women that ASM while starting a BSA4G unit would fulfill the PoR requirement. But that would cause NESA to lose $$ as the actual # of Eagle awards plummet because last-minute scouts will procrastinate in perpetuity without a "last minute" to scramble them.

Those who do this regularly can explain why, but it's a lot easier to work with a "transfer report." Also post-modern nomads tend to put their faith in database output, but I don't think that's a prime factor. Anyway, have fun first. Patches will follow.

I am holding off bringing this up for a month or so. But here's my pitch: I will share the outline I got from Wendy Shaw's talk from training (and posted for you all a while back). I will then point out that I have not seen 5 girls willing to form a troop nor a female adult willing to be trained, but if you are out there, I have myself and a willing CO. The unknowns are the existing troop committee and PLC who may decide how "linked" they want to be. My house has a doorbell and a phone ... tag me before five teens come and ask to restart the Venturing Crew.

@Bobbys_mommy I wouldn't worry too much about the records. He has sign-offs in his book, right? At this level, it's not too hard to go over the pack calendar and cover the things he had completed there. Then, most things that he completed at home, you could go over with his new den leader. That's the point about dens, boys are able to able to get the individual attention they need. Speaking of individual attention. The downside of a den is it might become pretty clear pretty quick that your boy is an instigator. That's a good thing for a parent to know, but it might be tough on the boy as he now has to unwind some of the conduct that led to this situation. (I'm not saying his conduct wasn't partly or wholly defensive ... just that I've found that boys coming from such situations have a hard time letting their guard down.) An honest den leader will let you in on what if anything is going on. You just have to be prepared to work with it.

LOL. In my neck of the woods, I call that an entitlement mentality. CO gives us space, with that we hold a fundraiser that covers lots of costs (including most weekend camp fees). Pastor and parishioners attend happily. In return, life scouts knock on the CO's door asking if there are projects they can do. Kids who can't afford camp often get helped by anonymous donors. But, we do experience other "down-sides" to this arrangement. The COR does not keep close tabs on us. The current one was an explorer, and experienced a similar CO, so it suits her just fine. I'm sure if she made more effort, we would communicate more and be more efficient.

The most outdoor-oriented GS/USA troops are ones who have leaders in their mid-twenties (who are not moms), or they are leaders who already work closely with BSA and are translating the boys' program to their girls. The problem of "play-it-safe" SMs (both male and female, but mainly the latter) is imploding a lot of BSA units. I have two young relatives who quit their troop because the promise of scouting wasn't being delivered. Last I checked they were playing gaga ball in a pit at a Trail Life gathering. I don't blame boys who move on if 14 girls just "show up". The best-case scenario is one mom or older sister or retiree taking on mentor-ship with your best ASM. (I find senior citizens to be some of the most trainable people on the planet when it comes to this stuff.) The youth start their hiking/camping, inviting a former SPL/TG from among the boys' troop to help with basic training. Any CO who can't deliver that, shouldn't start. Like the Good Book says, "Count the cost."

This is where many of us take for granted that we've each gravitated toward the CO's who give us the latitude we feel we need to deliver the program we think we must. As a scout, I was always puzzled why a troop started up on the same side of our very small town as my own troop. Reflecting on it, I've come to realize that my SM, who was more than happy to have some rough guys as ASM (all good as gold, but not necessarily paragons of the church who sponsored us), was not the kind of guy everyone wanted to be scouting with. Although strict regarding manners and generous towards missionaries, he would be nobody's agent of protestant reformation. Same for the committee. Clearly, the church hosting our troop expected them to leave any preaching to the professionals. I'm sure it caused no small amount of discomfort to parishioners that we would sometimes attend scout Sunday and the Catholic church and share activities with the LDS troop. The Baptist church's troop, I believe, was somewhat different. Camp less. Preach more. Watch which lines you cross. Needless to say, certain types would work well with one CO, but not the other.

In that environment, any change would fail in a self-fulfilling prophecy sort of way. I would guide the 4 girls to find a 5th and form a different troop refer them to the 1/4 "strong yes" for their pool of leaders. Have the CO determine if they can handle this "linked" unit, or if it would be better off to have an independent sponsor. We had a minority strongly opposed to whatever I was doing with Venturing and blowing smoke in the CoR's face about it. It took a while to figure out that they were actually a very small minority. (Some parents switched to being in favor of the thing after discussion with their boys. Or, being impressed by the behavior of our girls.) But, if the reverse were true, relocating the crew to a different CO would have been a no-brainer.

I definitely understand the shifting sands feeling.

Yes. We are students of minutiae on this blog. That's mainly because most of us have taken flack for one thing or another by someone making up rules on the fly, and we found here the support for a breadth of reasonable ideas ... and correction for some stupid ones. As far as linked troops being a "botch up", I'm keeping an open mind. Although our friends in Western Europe have "anything goes" way of incorporating girls in their units, I've met scouts from other countries who've work with more segregated models. Although the one-off girl who tags along with her brother makes splashier headlines, the girls who've formed their own patrols and asked to be recognized as a unit ... that's a very classic model of growth. The scouter who you mentioned, was his troop looking forward to welcoming girls?

I've had scouts complain about being in a dysfunctional family. (These were not boys showing/reporting any signs of abuse, BTW.) I asked, "Are you alive? Then it seems to have functioned." I've known: CO's who wanted to charge rent. CO's who asked the troop to go to mass as if their camping activity extended to Sunday. Non Catholics could wait outside the church for that hour if their faith demanded it. COs who would not remove leaders who generated drama. CO's who welcomed (insisted?) that girls in the community be part of the program. Rogue troops do not happen in vacuums. I would say that if the CO insisted on something egregious, like refusing to send its leaders to training, that would be too far.